Lubango - The country is saving about USD 10 million/year with the reduction of evacuations abroad by medical board, as a result of investments in the sector since 2017.
The figures were released today, Tuesday, by the Minister of Health, Silvia Lutukuta, in an interview to Rádio Huíla, of the RNA group, on the sidelines of the Ministry's 30th consultative council.
Figures from the Ministry for Health (MINSA) show that Angola currently has 129 patients outside the country, with a medical consultation, of which 77 are in Portugal, with 30 accompanying persons, and 30 in South Africa, with seven accompanying persons.
According to available data, by 2017 the country had 245 patients and 130 companions at the expense of the National Medical Board in Portugal. Each patient, according to the data, cost an annual average of about five million kwanzas.
Over the last few decades 9,360 patients and 5,250 companions have been treated at medical centres in Portugal, with annual spending of around six million euros.
The minister said that due to the number of patients and the complexity, those who were abroad were discharged from hospital at the State's expense and the medical aid reverted to the country.
"We still have minimal numbers, but I guarantee that we are saving resources and in the medium term we will see the results of this great reversal," she said.
She pointed out that among the areas that required the sending of highly complex patients abroad were cardiology, more precisely in surgeries for adults and children, orthopaedics, knee and hip replacements, which already have qualified specialists in the country's health units.
Neurosurgery, ophthalmology and oncology are other sectors of medicine that have a solution in the country and that prevent the evacuation of patients, said the minister, who announced the operation of in-viltro fertilisation and transplant specialities, the latter with the opening of the paediatric haematological institute, where conditions are being created to transplant bone marrows.
